Discrimination, Censorship and Torture

Activist blogger Alaa Abd El-Fattah (Photo: Masry25.blogspot.com)

We are all Essam Atta today.

Essam Atta, 24, has apparently been tortured to death at Cairo's Tora prison. He was a victim of flooding his body with water through his mouth and anus. His family received calls from other inmates about the torture. Atta was being punished for smuggling a mobile phone SIM card into his cell. He had been tried by a military court on February 25th in relation to illegally occupying an apartment, and sentenced to two years. His family says he was simply nearby a scuffle at the time of his arrest.

Egyptian Prison Guards Accused of Torture Death
Latest alleged torture death in Egypt prompts public outcry against SCAF

It is not an easy time to be a journalist or a blogger in Egypt. In my view, the SCAF seems to have a consistent, and purposeful policy of harassing, intimidating, and arresting journalists and bloggers who criticize their regime.

Activists Alaa Seif Abd El-Fattah and Bahaa Saber were questioned at the offices of the military prosecution this morning, Sunday on charges of instigating the Maspero clashes. Abd El-Fattah runs the political blog Manalaa. He is one of Egypt's most famous bloggers. Human rights activist Mona Seif says that military prosecutors claim to possess video footage proving that Seif and Saber (rather implausibly) had incited protesters to commit violent attacks against army personnel during the Maspero clashes.

Here is a good post by fellow blogger Abdu Rahman that links the Maspero clashes with the deaths of Atta and the imprisonment of Alaa and Bahaa.

Pictures of the Dead Continue to Haunt Us

According to Al Ahram and Al Masry, around 12,000 civilians have been tried before military courts since February 11, 2011.

The military prosecutor also summoned a journalist, Mahmoud Al-Daba, who writes for the independent weekly Sawt al-Omma, for criticizing irregularities in the appointment of lecturers at Al Azhar University. The weekly magazine was confiscated in September after criticizing Egypt's General Intelligence Services. The Editor in Chief of the paper has rejected the summons. Three journalists Hossam el-Hamalawy, Reem Maged, and Nabil Shraf al-Din were summoned to appear before military judges for criticisms of the SCAF.

Meanwhile, detained blogger Maikel Nabil has been cleared of mental illness by a panel at Abbasiya Mental Hospital. He has been returned to a military prison in northern Cairo.  Nabil was sentenced to three years in military prison for writing a blog called "The people and the army were never one hand." Ironically, as the SCAF becomes more and more ruthless against civilians, the title of Nabil's blog appears to be increasingly correct.

Journalist summoned by military prosecutor

Detained Blogger Returns to Military Prison

Finally, in the wake of the Maspero tragedy, the European Parliament in Strasbourg passed a draft resolution accusing the Egyptian and Syrian governments of persecuting their Christian minorities. Some 10,000 Coptic Christians have left Egypt since March, 2011. 

An African in Egypt

Photo Credit. Historical photo of a Nubian. 

Egyptians range in skin color from the palest European to the darkest African, and every shade in between.

A bad thing happened on Friday. My Sudanese nanny, Suzy, was the victim of a pretty serious racist incident. Suzy is south Sudanese, of the Dinka people. She was on the bus to Rehab to come to work on Friday morning. It being Egypt, only one side of the bus had curtains. The older Egyptian lady in the seat in front of her told her to give her the whole curtain. Suzy said no, she would prefer to share the curtain.

The older Egyptian lady told her that she did not need the curtain "because she was black." Suzy asked her why she was being so rude. The lady replied "F#$^ your black mother. You Sudanese have no right to be in Egypt. I can make your day blacker than your face."

Suzy had the self restraint to just ask her why she was being so outrageous. The lady responded by hitting her in the face. Suzy, to her credit, did not hit back. Only one person on the bus came to her defense. A man behind her offered her his curtain. The rest did nothing.

Then, after suffering these ridiculous indignities, Suzy was detained by the Rehab security guards, who demanded to see her passport. She did not have it on her, so they held her for 45 minutes. She came to my house, apologizing for being late. I heard her story and was furious. I packed all the kids and her into a taxi. I went to the security location at the bus stop in Rehab.

As a woman of color, an African-American woman, a woman of African descent, I have been in Suzy's position many times. I have been called n*&%(%& and mulatto. I have had fist fights many times. Some times I won, and sometimes I lost, but I always fought back. 

As I have mentioned, Egypt is very very hierarchical. I am not. I do not like hierarchy, and it makes me feel sick to benefit from it. But, this particular time, it came in handy. I wore my American University in Cairo ID. I asked Suzy, and my fabulous Egyptian taxi driver (who only speaks Arabic) to translate for me.

I said. "I am a professor at American University in Cairo. This is my employee. She has been mistreated. An Egyptian lady hit her in the face, but you detained my employee, not the aggressor. That is racist, and I will not put up with it. President Sadat's mother was Sudanese. There is no reason to treat the Sudanese badly. They are our neighbors, and our brothers and our sisters."

The guards replied that they knew I was a professor. They also pointed to their skin, and said how could they discriminate, they are dark too. I said, "That is fine, and perhaps it is not your fault. But my employee was called racist names, and she was treated badly because she is Sudanese. You did not help her. Instead, you gave her a hard time. I never want to have a problem like this again, and if I have one, I am pressing charges against everyone involved." The security guards were duly chastened. Suzy told me that they did not ask her or her sister for their IDs in the following days. If only I could ensure that she and her sister would not face discrimination in Egypt again.

Elevator

This post previously published at Blogcritics. WMB

Dear readers,

I got on the elevator this morning to go to my office at AUC. I was alone with my coffee. I saw a group of about twelve janitors, both male and female, standing around in front of the elevator. My co-worker had told me that sometimes in Egypt, higher status people will not share the elevator.

Egypt is a deeply class-based society, in my opinion, and there are many moments when people jostle for status over everything from titles, to clothing, to who rides in the elevator. Well folks, not on my watch.

I am American. We hold these truths to be self evident: all men (and women) are created equal. I am "Black." My people have been held down too long for me to hold someone else down. I am African, descended from the Mau Mau. We have to fight for the right to be free.

One of the slogans of the January 25th Revolution was "bread, democracy, human dignity." I asked all the janitors to come into the elevator. I smiled broadly and waved them in. My Arabic is not very good, but I said, "Ahlen." Be welcome. Everyone came in, and everyone smiled and laughed. The elevator door closed, and we started moving. The revolution starts here, and it starts now.